מיכאל אבן – Michael Even : POETRY
19 בינואר, 2024
♣
Like a tree,
Its top, rich and dense,
Its roots though,
grounded in shifting sands,
Roaming the fragile surface of a bubble,
Looking from the outside,
Seeing me out there,
Drifting on a dusty stretch,
parched,
In an endless hazy wasteland,
Surrounded by lurking vultures,
Scorched by the sun,
in search of a shaded sanctuary.
In the dark hours of solitude,
I see flashes;
haunting images,
Of fragrant, hot,
moist summer nights,
A gentle salty sea breeze,
Daffodils in the spring,
A few friendly faces,
together…
Sipping wine,
in midnight-street-cafes.
Having left you,
To graze in foreign pastures,
Living on this side of darkness,
Immersed in daily toils,
Walking down the streets and avenues
of an abrasive urban labyrinth.
Crushed under the yoke,
of a bag filled with longing,
Dreaming of that soft glow from the other side,
a child’s dream of a place that never was…
Michael Even
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אנו פותחים את המדור – “במת אורחים” באתר “מילים” בשיר פרי עטו של מיכאל אבן, ישראלי המתגורר בארה”ב – ששלח לנו את שירו : Exile.
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הועלה לאתר “מילים” ביום 19.1.2024
20.05.2025 [ 422]
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This name was inspired by Alfred Tennyson’s poem:“The Charge of the Light Brigade” which was dedicated To the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War on October 25, 1854,
Thrust into brutal combat,
My passage through youth was to be
forever severed.
Through my steel turret’s peephole,
a brigade of steel and heavy armor,
Spread-out in an open field,
Like monstrous creatures
of ancient times,
Killing machines
concealed, under dusty screens,
Blending in the landscape
appear as a shrub-covered-field.
Squeezed in tight battle stations,
In sweltering heat and freezing nights
prepared for the unknown,
Long days melting into long
protracted dusty weeks,
Of waiting and waiting,
A soldier’s routine
they say…
Visceral anxiety intensified
traveling down the spine,
through the veins…
and into the limbs …
Overshadowed by premonitions
Exacerbated by the unknown,
And the chilling stillness
of an ominous radio silence.
When suddenly,
Before the break of dawn
as radio silence broke,
Rattled by
a violent wakeup call,
as all hells broke loose,
Mixed with thunderous sounds
of low-flying jets,
and rumbling armor,
Joined by pounding artillery thuds
Shuddering the earth,
the deafening sounds of battle.2
A mass of steel storming west
crossing an invisible line,
Marked on the maps in green
arbitrarily delineating,
An invisible line
Yet an impervious barrier,
That set worlds apart,
generations prior.
In the thunderous storm
of a roaring battlefield,
Cannon to the right
cannon to the left,
Bombs, explosions, all around,
Artillery shells, stuttering bullets,
Spurts of machine-gunfire,
And jets conducting their wars above
Noise, noise, relentless noise,
thunderous chaos.
Now, turning into the desert,
Sand, sand, endless sand
spread-out into a hazy horizon,
Sliced by a snake-like armored column,
Snaking its way through
the chaos.
Images of brutal hell wrapped by
a foggy, dusty cloud,
Desert fog, battle fog,
Darkened by gun-smoke
and fires of burning armor.
Mounting anxiety within,
Staring into each-other’s eyes
in search of some solace,
Assuage the fear
without exposing it,
Trying a slight joke, here and there
probing?
maybe even some comic relief?
A comradery of men at war,
Seeking sustenance
from each other,
Through long hours of scorching sun
painful fatigue,
And the unescapable
contact with heated armor,
baked by a merciless sun.3
Inside the helmet
tightly fitted around the sweaty head,
Relentless buzzing,
Fragments of radio messages
hammering the skull.
Reflecting the bewildering chaos of the battlefield,
As the hours and days continue,
Days into nights
nights into days,
a lost sense of time.
Now, casualties,
And bleeding friends
on stretchers.
Agonizing screams for help
penetrating the chaos.
Sweat and burning rubber,
Eyes bloodshot from dust
gun-smoke and painful fatigue,
Fear and terror
trembling knees,
The horrific stifling stench of death
and human remains,
Of both
friends and foes.
The insignificance of human life
Manifested,
Human life that can be abruptly severed
or trampled over,
Amidst the utter confusion
of the roaring battlefield,
Time’s lost in the fog of war,
Long hours, stretching into endless days,
And the relentless yearning
for all this to go away.
****
Now,
years later,
As the images of horror,
Somewhat swept away
by life’s routine and chores,
As the horrific memories
and the faces of those who were by my side,
fading into oblivion’s fog,4
To rest at the bottom of the dark abyss of memory.
Yet the scenes of horror still linger by my side
like an unescapable shadow,
That without notice, or warning
would shake me up,
at unexpected moments,
Triggered by a sudden noise
A flash of memory
just before the rising from the night.
Michael Even
הועלה לאתר “מילים” ביום 20.5.2025
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תרומתכם תתקבל בתודה ובהערכהתרומה צנועה שלכם, תהא עבורנו אות וסימן, כי ה"מילים" שלנו שיצאו מן הלב והושקעו בהבאתם מאמצים רבים, ושעות עבודה רבות הגיעו ונגעו לליבכם - וכי עמלנו ומאמצינו נשאו פרי ולא היו לשווא ועל כך תבואו על הברכה.
